Prices

Market Update: Traders ‘Buck the Trend’ Pushing Crypto Market Cap Above $200 Billion

07/04/2020 by Idelto Editor

Digital currency markets have been rising again as the entire market capitalization of all 5,000+ coins has jumped above the $200 billion mark. The increase in crypto trade volume and coin values has followed alongside the recovery traditional equity markets saw on Monday. On Tuesday, most of the digital assets in the top ten are up between 4-14% and crypto trade volumes have doubled in the last 24 hours.

Also read: Hyperbitcoinization: Visions of Bitcoin Fueling the Post Covid-19 Shadow Economy

Top Ten Crypto Assets Gain 4-14% in the Last 24 Hours

During the last few weeks, digital currency proponents and crypto traders have been wondering what will happen to bitcoin and the slew of other coins in the crypto industry. For instance, the entire cryptocurrency market capitalization lost a whopping $44 billion on March 12, 2020, otherwise known as ‘Black Thursday.’ BTC prices dropped to a low of $3,870 on March 12. The following day, BTC regained some of the losses when it was hovering between $5,300-5,600 per coin on March 13.

Since then, BTC has gained 30% since the low and on April 7, prices are currently meandering between $7,300-$7,425 during Tuesday morning’s trading sessions. BTC has gained about 4% in the last 24 hours and the coin is up 15% for the week. Ethereum is priced around $174 per ETH and has gained 13.3% today. Behind ETH is XRP, which is swapping for $0.20 per coin as XRP markets are up by 6.8%.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH/USD) Market Action

Bitcoin cash (BCH) is trading for $259 per coin today and has gained 7.2% in the last 24 hours. BCH is up 18% for the week and has also gained 8.5% during the last 90 days. The top trading pair with BCH on Tuesday is tether (USDT), which is capturing around 63% of all BCH trades. This is followed by BTC (20.71%), USD (9.42%), KRW (2.19%), ETH (1.65%), EUR (0.91%), and JPY (0.82%).

Bitcoin cash has a liquid market cap that’s hovering around $4.8 billion on Tuesday, and BCH is the fifth most trade crypto below EOS and above LTC. BCH reported trade volume is around $4.8 billion, but messari.io’s “real volume” statistics note it’s around $35 million. In 22 hours, BCH will be the first major SHA256 branch to experience a halving. After April 8, BCH miners will go from receiving 12.5 coins per block to 6.25 BCH, plus transaction fees.

Digital Currency Market Prices ‘Buck the Trend’

Market analyst from Etoro, Simon Peters, noted in a recent investors’ report that last week’s financial data was far more worrisome than this week’s changes. “Economic data released last week was worrying, to say the least,” Peters wrote. “Midweek figures revealing a drop in exports from big Asian economies, such as Japan and South Korea, hit equity markets globally, resulting in the S&P 500 and the FTSE 100 both dropping considerably.” Peters remarked that cryptocurrency markets, however, have managed to “buck the trend.”

“From a crypto asset point of view, however, both bitcoin and altcoins have performed well during this difficult period,” the Etoro analyst added. “Bitcoin has been in a consolidation phase, remaining steady in between $6,000 and $7,000. There has been the odd spike, both to the upside and the downside, but overall, I am happy with the solidity of the price at the moment. With the Fed carrying out its policy of unlimited quantitative easing, buying assets left right and center, I think bitcoin is going to be pushing towards $7,500 in the short term.

Crypto Investors ‘Shrug Off Pessimism’

While BTC prices remain above the $7K region and a slew of other digital assets follow suit, many market strategists believe crypto investors are less worried. In just a week’s time, sentiment among crypto traders and investors has changed from bearish to bullish. “[Bitcoin and cryptocurrency] purchases follow the signs of improving sentiment in the stock markets,” noted Alex Kuptsikevich, Fxpro’s senior market analyst. “As soon as risk assets start to attract demand actively, institutional investors may also increase their positions in the cryptocurrency,” Kuptsikevich added on Monday.

Additionally, Naeem Aslam the chief market strategist from Avatrade remarked that crypto investors are far more optimistic now. “Investors are shrugging off the pessimism,” Aslam wrote. However, Aslam said that covid-19 might not be over so quickly and the virus could make it so “we could be in for a longer period of recession.”

The Verdict: Post Covid-19 Uncertainty Remains

Overall digital assets have outshined U.S. stock markets and precious metals as well. The price of BTC has surpassed the S&P 500’s gains and the rest of the top U.S. indexes. Since equity markets started showing signs of recovery, gold has moved very little and has only gained 2% since the start of the year. Despite social media and forums showing a lot more optimism among crypto investors, the multifactorial Crypto Fear & Greed Index (CFGI) shows “extreme fear” is still in the air.

Traders understand that digital currencies are doing very well but economic uncertainty, in general, is clouding most people’s predictions. As far as BTC prices are concerned and a few other digital asset values, key resistance has started to form. If crypto assets can’t break these regions, then another pullback could be in the cards. Despite the looming doubt, researchers believe that the response to covid-19 from governments and central banks will be a positive influence on crypto assets.

“We believe that the downstream impact of the government’s fiscal and monetary response to the crisis will be strongly positive for crypto,” Bitwise’s Global Head of Research Matt Hougan remarked in the firm’s April 2020 Investor Letter.

Where do you see the crypto markets heading from here? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Market Update: Traders ‘Buck the Trend’ Pushing Crypto Market Cap Above $200 Billion appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Blind Faith in S2F Models: Analysts Question Measuring Bitcoin’s Price With Stock-to-Flow

06/04/2020 by Idelto Editor

One of the most bullish charts for predicting the price of bitcoin is the infamous stock-to-flow (S2F) model. The S2F analysis shows the price of BTC could reach $55,000 in the near future. One advocate of the S2F model, the Twitter account known as ‘Plan B,’ wrote a report about the subject and the article was extremely popular and translated into multiple languages. However, skeptics believe the S2F model is faulty and it’s most prominent supporter has said S2F is not entirely accurate, but “an order of magnitude right.”

Also read: Evidence Shows Politicians and Wall Street CEOs Expected the Market Crash Well Before Covid-19

Can We Measure Bitcoin’s Value with Scarcity? Stock-to-Flow Model Suggests Its Possible

There have been hundreds of bitcoin price predictions over the last decade, but most of them stem from people pulling numbers out of thin air. Even when a myriad of analysts and crypto luminaries pick digital currency prices out of a hat and get it wrong, no one really cares. Although, there are a few models and charting techniques that many strategists and traders wholeheartedly believe in, like the signals from Bollinger Bands and Elliott Wave Theory. The analyst known as Plan B (@100trillionusd) has popularized the stock-to-flow (S2F) model, which measures the price of BTC using the number of coins in circulation and the flow or issuance rate. Plan B’s editorial called “Modeling Bitcoin’s Value with Scarcity” has gone viral and has been translated into a variety of different languages.

Blind Faith in S2F Models: Analysts Question Measuring Bitcoin's Price With Stock-to-Flow — Precious metals have been measured with stock-to-flow models for years. Plan B’s popular post called “Modeling Bitcoin’s Value with Scarcity” shows how BTC is the first scarce digital object known to man.

Essentially, S2F divides abundance with demand by treating BTC like commodities such as gold or platinum. So any analyst can use the model to evaluate the current BTC in circulation against the number of coins mined during a specific year. The bitcoin halvings, the period of time when the block rewards are cut in half, play a crucial role in the S2F model. Because the halvings make it harder for miners to stock crypto inventory the division of this rate by the value of measured abundance. Bitcoiners didn’t make the S2F model as it’s been used for quite some time with gold, the commodity with the most S2F ratio. In Plan B’s research article, he notes that bitcoin is the “first scarce digital object the world has ever seen [and] it is scarce like silver & gold, and can be sent over the internet, radio, satellite etc.”

The first stock-to-flow (S2F) chart that can be found in Plan B’s analysis “Modeling Bitcoin’s Value with Scarcity.”

“I calculated bitcoin’s monthly SF and value from Dec. 2009 to Feb. 2019 (111 data points in total),” Plan B wrote in his report. “Number of blocks per month can be directly queried from the bitcoin blockchain with Python/RPC/bitcoind. Actual number of blocks differs quite a bit from the theoretical number because blocks are not produced exactly every 10 minutes (e.g. in the first year 2009 there were significantly less blocks). With the number of blocks per month and known block subsidy, you can calculate flow and stock.” Plan B further states:

I corrected for lost coins by arbitrarily disregarding the first million coins (7 months) in the SF calculation. More accurate adjusting for lost coins will be a subject for future research.

Plan B’s S2F Model Predicts Bitcoin’s Price Will Touch $55K – Skeptics Say S2F Model Surrenders People to Beliefs of the Crowd

Plan B’s report concludes that the “[S2F model predicts a bitcoin market value of $1 [trillion] after next halving in May 2020, which translates in a bitcoin price of $55,000.” However, not everyone thinks the S2F model is accurate and a number of skeptics have attempted to invalidate the S2F concept in relation to bitcoin’s price.

Crypto Twitter and digital currency forums are filled with S2F skeptics who think the model is pure hopium and silly.

A recent report published on April 1, by the Seattle-based crypto hedge fund called “Lost in Space – Bitcoin and the Halving,” describes why SF2 econometric models are too simplistic. The firm Strix Leviathan details halving theories and stock-to-flow models could be false narratives as the report underlines that people should “not [exert] blind faith in one specific outcome.”

“Doing so leaves one’s investment subject to the whims and beliefs of the crowd while surrendering returns to the randomness of luck,” wrote Strix Leviathan portfolio manager Nico Cordeiro.

Despite the covid-19 effects on the global economy, BTC prices were initially affected on March 12 (the price dipped to $3,800 per coin) otherwise known as ‘Black Thursday,’ but prices have since risen back above the $7K zone. On April 5, Plan B tweeted a quote from the 19th-century British logician, Carveth Read, which admits predictions are not always correct all the time. The tweet said “‘It’s better to be approximately right than exactly wrong’ – Carveth Read. [The] S2F model is not dead accurate, but an order of magnitude right.” The analyst’s S2F model for bitcoin has been criticized on numerous occasions and especially after the coronavirus shocked the world’s financial system.

Despite the skeptics, a slew of bitcoiners wholeheartedly have faith in the S2F model and ‘stacking sats.’

‘Stock-to-Flow Does Have a Significant Influence on USD Price of Bitcoin,’ Says Report

Still, numerous people believe the S2F model might not exactly accurate, but pretty damn close. Another report published on March 27 tries to invalidate the statistics behind the S2F model, but the report rejects the theories that S2F doesn’t have an important role. “Whilst many tests have been able to be shown to be incorrect or have series errors, we have been able to reject the hypothesis that stock-to-flow does not have an important non-spurious influence on the US dollar price of Bitcoin,” explains the analysis called “Stock-to-Flow Influences on Bitcoin Price.”

#Bitcoin #s2f coefficient from ARDL info gives us a more conservative range than the OLS or VECMs. pic.twitter.com/SZlMuhWvhK

— Nick☣ (@btconometrics) April 3, 2020

“The bounds test for a level relationship in the ARDL model provides very robust evidence to reject the null hypothesis and conclude that stock-to-flow does have a significant influence on the U.S. dollar price of bitcoin,” the report concludes.

Plan B’s latest S2F chart published on Twitter on April 1, 2020.

Despite some criticism from crypto Twitter and other researchers, Plan B still seems confident in his model. “So BTC has been oscillating around S2F value of $7,000 for 2.5 years now,” Plan B tweeted. “Just like before 2016 halving ($300) and before 2012 halving ($6). Excited to see if we are going to add another zero after the halving in May,” Plan B remarked. The researcher also stressed a few days earlier on April 1:

Both bitcoin S2F cross-asset model (based on gold, silver etc) and S2F time series model (historical price path) point to $1 [trillion]+ BTC market cap in 2020-2024 (red circle, where orange and blue line overlap). $1 [trillion]+ market cap translates into $55K+ BTC price.

What do you think about the controversial S2F model? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Blind Faith in S2F Models: Analysts Question Measuring Bitcoin’s Price With Stock-to-Flow appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Free from Tron: Steemit’s Blockchain Fork Hive Outperforms Steem Token Value

29/03/2020 by Idelto Editor

For weeks now, the cryptocurrency community has been fervently discussing the recent acquisition of the Steemit blockchain. Skeptics believe that the Tron takeover has shown significant vulnerabilities with delegated-proof-of-stake (DPoS) projects. Following the takeover, the community still managed to fork the protocol and the new hard-forked blockchain dubbed ‘Hive’ has seen its token price outperform the value of Steem tokens.

Also read: In-Between Bitcoin Halvings: Analyst Proves Bitcoin’s Price Not Bound to 4-Year Cycles

A slew of Steemit proponents believe the Steemit protocol was rescued from centralization and Justin Sun’s Tron project. On March 3, news.Bitcoin.com reported on how the first community-led fork had failed because a few exchanges used large swathes of DPoS tokens in order to stop the attempt. Then on March 20, community members forked the Steemit protocol and relaunched under the name ‘Hive’ using its own blockchain. Although after the fork took place, Hive’s project leaders had issues with moving steem tokens into the Hive chain. Further, the team discussed blacklisting certain Tron proponents who have a significant stake in the project. Today, hive tokens (HIVE) are trading for $0.21 per coin and steem tokens (STEEM) are selling for $0.17 per unit.

Steem trade volume, however, reported by exchanges has been around $2.3 million during the last 24 hours. Hive volume is considerably lower at the time of publication, with only $53K worth of 24-hour swaps. Despite the fork last week, the Tron-backed Steemit project hopes to convince users to come back to the Steemit project. Additionally, Steemit operators also admitted to censoring Steemit-based articles that discuss the Hive project. Essentially, the Tron-owned Steemit project leaders told the community that if they are divided, the project’s original goals will fail. The blog post states:

We listened to the Steem community, and we always will. While we do not agree, nor obviously support the recent hard fork, we continue to find ways to show our commitment to developing our Steem ecosystem with the support of our great community. We love Steem and we are always supporting a united community since we believe that united we stand, divided we fall.

When Steemit’s new owners confessed to censoring posts they said: “Would any commercial website support a post that encourages all users to migrate to another one? No. That would not be in the best interest of the community and the Steem ecosystem.” Meanwhile, the Hive blockchain community is positive about the new project and the lessons learned. “Hive is unique in that it’s a social blockchain. Bonds have been built over the years. Lives have been changed, saved and improved. Lessons have been learned,” one Hive supporter wrote on Twitter. “Open source so your contributions are immutable — Hive is an idea and no amount of money, government or corporations can kill it,” he added.

While speaking of the situation on social media about Steemit’s new project leaders censoring posts and the centralization issues, another Hive supporter tweeted: “Woah, this is scary. Over 4,500 posts and comments, just gone. What’s supposed to be a decentralized social network, has become dangerously centralized. They’re still on Steem, but [they are] censoring me just because I was heavily involved in Hive?”

What do you think about the hive token outperforming steem tokens? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Free from Tron: Steemit’s Blockchain Fork Hive Outperforms Steem Token Value appeared first on Bitcoin News.

‘Bull Run May Not Come Immediately After Bitcoin Halving,’ Says Bitmain’s Jihan Wu

28/03/2020 by Idelto Editor

Bitmain cofounder Jihan Wu’s recent interview discusses some of his predictions concerning the future of bitcoin, mining, the bitcoin halving, and the cryptoconomy. Despite the coronavirus outbreak and its effect on the global economy, Wu is optimistic and he believes the modern central banks’ loose monetary policy infecting the world will bolster the value of financial technologies.

Also read: Market Update: Slew of Unknown Coins Has Seen Considerable Gains Since ‘Black Thursday’

Slow Growth and Bitcoin’s Price Top

The cofounder of Bitmain, one of the largest ASIC mining rig manufacturers worldwide, believes that cryptocurrencies show great promise in the midst of the current economic storm. According to a recent interview published on Friday, Bitmain’s Jihan Wu had said he was positive about the future of digital currencies like bitcoin. Wu explained that the recent bailouts and central planners’ stimulus injections could make digital currencies more valuable. During the discussion, Wu noted that the price of bitcoin also has a top and at times growth will be slower.

“As bitcoin’s market cap grows, its volatility decreases and becomes more stable,” Wu detailed. “That means we may not see abrupt spikes in its price. No matter how high bitcoin goes, one day it will reach a top. Before that, it will see prices [with] flatline growth with some twists in the next few years.” Wu also said:

I think the bull this time around may not come immediately after the halving. There likely will be a delay in time.

Next-Gen Miners, Safehaven Status, Bitcoin Cash, and Ethereum

Wu then detailed that he doesn’t think bitcoin can act as a “safe haven in a volatile world.” “However, bitcoin and the financial markets, in my eyes, are a bit like the relationship between a surfboard and wave. How well you can surf depends on your skills,” Wu remarked. Further, Wu discussed the latest round of next-generation miners Bitmain recently revealed. Bitmain unveiled two bitcoin miners with max speeds up to 110TH/s per unit on February 27. The mining manufacturers cofounder believes these next-generation miners will serve the market for at least 3-4 years.

Bitmain’s CEO also said that bitcoin cash (BCH) is a promising project and he is of the opinion that “overly ambitious goals should be put on hold.” “Keep the technical architecture simple and the community united,” he added. As far as ethereum (ETH), Wu also was positive about the crypto’s outlook, but said developers should put less concern in removing proof-of-work and focus more on progressing the technology forward.

What do you think about Bitmain cofounder Jihan Wu’s recent interview? Let us know in the comments section below.

The post ‘Bull Run May Not Come Immediately After Bitcoin Halving,’ Says Bitmain’s Jihan Wu appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Bitcoin Hashrate Down 45% – Miners Witness Second-Largest Difficulty Drop in History

27/03/2020 by Idelto Editor

Bitcoin’s hashrate has plummeted 45% since the record-breaking levels it saw on Feb. 29. The hashrate touched an all-time high of 136 exahash per second (EH/s) but has since dropped to 75 EH/s. Moreover, the crypto network has seen the second-largest difficulty drop since October 2011.

Also read: While You’re Under Quarantine, Check These Sites for Remote Crypto Jobs

Bitcoin Hashrate Declines 45% Since All-Time High

The latest cryptoconomy price shift has capitulated a number of small mining operations and BTC’s overall hashrate has dropped 45% in 30 days. The price drop stemmed from the looming economic crisis scaring the entire world and BTC is hovering between $6,600-6,850 per coin. On Feb. 29, the network’s hashrate spiked to the highest level ever captured, reaching 136 EH/s. But during the last 30 days and especially since the infamous “Black Thursday” on March 12, BTC’s hashrate dropped to a low of 75 EH/s. Statistics show that miners paying above $0.05 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) are not seeing the best profits. Naturally, this has caused some operations to shut off miners, as they hope to re-enter when the price gets better.

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Second-Largest BTC Difficulty Drop

Miners leaving the system and the hashrate dropping 45% have caused the second largest BTC network difficulty drop since 2011. Basically, the network’s difficulty is a measure of how hard it is to find the hash beneath a specified target. The drop was around 15.5% after the difficulty went from 16.5 trillion to 13.9 trillion on Thursday. BTC’s difficulty is based on a two-week interval or 2,016 blocks, but it’s also affected a great deal when a large number of mining operations stop mining.

The last times BTC saw such a drastic difficulty dip were in December 2018 (15%) and October 2011 (around 18%). The price drop BTC experienced last week was the worst in years and it wasn’t nice for miners hoping for a bull run. Meanwhile, with the difficulty so low, a few crypto observers have noticed a lot more miners bouncing back and forth between the BCH and BTC networks. Both blockchains will see a block reward reduction during the next month and a half, as BCH will halve in 12 days on or around April 8. BTC will see its block subsidy chopped in half around 48 days from now on or around May 13.

What do you think about BTC’s hashrate dip and the plummeting network difficulty? Let us know in the comments section below.

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